CU’s nine elected regents — five Republicans and four Democrats — will decide whether Kennedy succeeds Bruce Benson as the head of the multi-billion-dollar, four-campus CU system at a board meeting at 1 p.m. in Krugman Hall on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.

Students and staff are planning a protest outside the hall ahead of the vote, and “airport-like security” will be in place for the meeting, university officials said.

University of Colorado freshman Jack Pool chants with others during a protest against Mark Kennedy, a finalist for the University of Colorado president position, on April 15 on the Norlin Quad on the Boulder campus.

In a grilling by the CU Faculty Council, which has issued several statements expressing disappointment in the finalist and alleging he committed “ethical misconduct,” Kennedy said he didn’t sign a letter that hundreds of other colleges and universities signed onto supporting undocumented students because he didn’t believe the University of North Dakota had any such students.

A week of touring all four CU campuses culminated in Kennedy being booed and mocked at the Boulder campus by students and faculty, and asked pointed questions about his commitment to diversity, LGBTQ issues and his morals and values.

With campuses and a partisan Board of Regents divided over Kennedy, it’s not yet clear what will come out of Thursday’s special board meeting, which is scheduled to begin with a closed-door executive session and end in a vote.

CU’s outgoing president Benson, who also had a Republican background along with ties to the oil and gas industry, was hired in 2008 in a Board of Regents vote that split along party lines, 6-3.